EMC Acquires Greenplum in ‘Big Data’ Deal

Storage behemoth EMC Corporation ( EMC) will acquire warehousing specialist Greenplum, Inc., the companies said today. Greenplum is seen as a key enabler of “big data” clouds, and will form the foundation of a new data computing product division within EMC’s Information Infrastructure business.

EMC has been noting the breakneck growth of the Digital Universe, and says Greenplum is an ideal fit in its roadmap for helping customers store and manage these oceans, and extract valuable information from them. That’s where Greenplum comes in.

Greenplum uses a massively parallel processing (MPP) architecture that using virtualized x86 infrastructure, which it says can deliver 10 to 100 times the performance of traditional database software in performing data analytics.

An example: eBay reportedly ues a Greenplum data warehouse holding more than 6.5 petabytes of user data, representing more than 17 trillion records. Other customers include marquee names like NASDAQ OMX, NYSE Euronext, Skype, Equifax, T-Mobile and Fox Interactive Media, which used Greenplum to better target ads on user-generated content on MySpace.

“The data warehousing world is about to change,” said Pat Gelsinger, President and Chief Operating Officer, EMC Information Infrastructure Products. “Greenplum’s massively-parallel, scale-out architecture, along with its self-service consumption model, has enabled it to separate itself from the incumbent players and emerge as the leader in this industry shift toward ‘big data’ analytics.”

“EMC and Greenplum bring extraordinary potential to customers at the intersection of ‘big data’ and sophisticated analytics,” said Bill Cook, Greenplum’s CEO. “What energizes us most now is EMC’s ability to open new doors of opportunity and accelerate delivery of our joint vision for the future.”

The acquisition of Greenplum will be an all-cash transaction and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2010, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

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About the Author

Rich Miller is the founder and editor at large of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.